Canada Sports Power Rankings

Hello and welcome to the Canadian Sports Power Rankings!

The goal here will be to (semi-seriously) rank Canadian athletes - both those born in Canada and occasionally those playing for teams located in Canada - in order of percieved "power" in the Canadian sports landscape. Since we are in the midst of Peak Sports Season (NFL, NHL, NCAAFB and MLB (and CFL, I guess) are all still playing games, NBA and NCAABB are just days away from tip-off) there's no better time to start then now!

Like most sports power rankings columns, this will consist of a completely arbitrary rating not based on any actual standings or statistics. Since we'll be spanning the entire sporting world and not just focusing on one particular league, these rankings will be even MORE arbitrary than any other power ranking you'll have seen before. In fact, the main factors in these rankings will be a combination of popularity, media hype, and on-field/court/ice performance.

So without any more up-front BS, lets start the rankings:

Baseball is Awesome: A Fan's Review of the Blue Jays 19-Inning Game

7 hours in 4 pictures.

19 innings. 7 hours. 39 hits, 19 walks, 43 men left on base. Two sunburned arms. And one severely damaged set of vocal chords.

Yes, I was one of the 46,126 fans at the Rogers Centre yesterday. Yes, I stayed for the whole game. And yes, I'm going to describe it here for anyone who did not have the pleasure of attending.

It started out like any other Sunday afternoon game, except there was a little more excitement in the air than usual. This was likely from a combination of a) Saturday night's comeback win b) the traitorous Tigers fans from across Ontario being in the house, and c) the number of young families at the Dome (primarily just to get a free hat).

The game started off how every Jays Talk-calling, Mike Wilner-annoying fan expected: Buehrle looked awful, offering tasty meatballs for the murderous top half of the Tigers lineup. Reyes seemed to bobble away any chance of stopping them. David Price probably felt very comfortable pitching against his old whipping boys, despite his new uniform. Errors and strikeouts were plentiful from the Jays. It looked like the sunshine and the free hat would be the highlights of the day for every Jays fan at the park.

But then, something changed. It seemed to start when David Price was hit by a comebacker in his knee-groin area. Now,I would never accuse anyone of being happy when a player gets injured - that's just mean. But it felt like we were the Rebels, and had finally found a vulnerability in the Death Star. There was no sympathy from the crowd.

Canadian Sports Week in Preview

Can you feel it? The end of summer is around the corner. But just as summer begins to wind down, the sports calendar ramps up, like a guardian angel shielding you from post-summer depression.

So let's take a look at whats on tap for the next week in the Canadian Sporting universe.

YA, TENNIS!

The Rogers Cup (Men's) - Toronto - through Aug. 10:

Tennis is an extremely underrated sport in Canada, or at least it's underrated by the average Canadian. Part of that is probably due to fact we haven't ever had a "local boy" to cheer for (sorry, Daniel Nestor. Nobody respects Doubles for some reason.) And another part is the yearly tradition of Tennis' biggest stars "sitting out" the Rogers Cup.

Both trends seem to be ending, though. Milos Raonic and Vaclav Pospisil have had unprecedented success of Canadians on the Men's side of things. And of the "Big 3" (Nadal, Federer, Djokovic) only Nadal managed to weasel his way out of playing in the Great White North this year - which could be caused in part by the aforementioned success of Ranoic and co., making Toronto more of a "destination".

Anyway, with the increased competition, don't expect a miraculous Canadian championship run at the Coupe De Rogers. Raonic, the brightest of the bunch by far, has a powerful serve that could carry him deep in the tournament, but just as we saw at Wimbledon, it likely won't be enough to take out a Djokovic or Federer.

5 Reasons the Blue Jays Made the Right Move by not Making Any Moves at the Trade Deadline

Why is everybody so mad at me, John?

After a long, tiring day of listening to FAN590 callers whine and moan about the Jays lack of action on today's MLB Trade Deadline day, it's finally over. And now begins the backlash - rumours of unhappiness in the clubhouse, namely from El Capitano Jose Bautista himself. People are calling for GM Alex Anthopolous' head, albeit in a poorly-articulated manner.

But I believe in Alex Anthopolous. I believe that he made the right decision in not making any deals. I believe the Jays are still in prime position to make the playoffs and win in the playoffs. And here are five reasons why I believe all that and why you should, too.

1. The Jays already have the best bats in the league.
   
   3rd in the league (MLB) in Batting Average. 2nd in OBP. 3rd in SLG. 1st in home runs. Even after the team's brutal June, the Jays dominate with the bat. They possess a deeeeep bench, filled with starting-caliber bats (although in some cases needing some platoonage.) When healthy,there's a major-league worthy bat at every position, which I don't think any other team can say. Maybe Oakland could've come close to the Jays at the plate, but after trading away Yoenis Cespedes they aren't the powerhouse they were yesterday.
   
   This is our advantage. Have some faith in the guys hitting the cover off the ball.